South America’s Shrooms

Conocybe

Conocybe is a genus of mushrooms with at least 243 other species.

They grow in the grasslands on dead moss, dead grass, sand dunes, rotten wood and manure. Conocybe species generally prefer fertile soils in turf and grasses and are found all over the world. Most have a long, thin, fragile stem and a bell-shaped or conical tip. It is easy to confuse species of Conocybe with species of Galerina & Bolbitius unless the microscopic properties are studied.

Conocybe filaris is a common lawn fungus that contains the same deadly toxins as the death cap.

Conocybe comes from the Greek cone for cone and cybe for head.

Dictyonema

Dictyonema is a diverse group of lichens. There are species with a variety of different shapes, including foliose, crustose and filamentous. Most species grow on earth, stone, moss or rotten tree trunks, one species grows on tree leaves.

Many lichens are a symbiosis between an ascomycete fungus and a photosynthetic green alga. However, a small percentage of lichens (around 10%) are cyano lichens and contain a photosynthetic cyanobacterium instead of green algae and an even smaller percentage (less than 1%) are basidiolic and contain a basidiomycete fungus instead of an ascomycete. This makes Dictyonema more mushroom related than most other lichens.

Gymnopilus

Gymnopilus is a genus of gill fungi within the Strophariaceae mushroom family that contains about 200 species of rusty orange spored mushrooms, previously divided into Pholiota and the nonexistent genus Flammula. The fruiting body is typically reddish brown to rusty orange to yellow, medium to large in size, often with a well developed veil. Flammulina lives on deadwood, earth, raw humus, peat, charred wood and burned lands. One kind populates pastureland. They rarely grow in large quantities, they can be parasitic on the roots or base of tree trunks. Members of Pholiota and Cortinarius are easy to confuse with Gymnopilus and Galerina, which contain poisonous and deadly species.

The name means naked pileus.

Panaeolus

Panaeolus are poisonous, saprotrophic fungi related to Bolbitiaceae. The body of the fruit is usually brown, the cap is conical, flared to hemispherical in shape, and sometimes also spreads when fully developed. The stem sits in the center of the hat and, with the exception of Panaeolus semiovatus, has no ring.

The word Panaeolus is Greek and means “all colorful” and refers to the stained gills of the mushrooms produced. The spores are smooth or rough, with a germinal pore, and all species, except Panaeolus foenisecii, have a deep black spore print.

Panaeolus always occur in grasslands with manure deposits. Due to these location requirements, fertilizers are widespread in rangelands in all areas where livestock are raised. Almost all fungi in the Panaeolus genus contain serotonin, urea, and tryptophan. Some species also contain the psychoactive indole alkaloids psilocybin and psilocin.

These fungi are primarily dung and grassland species, some of which are widespread in Europe and North America.

Members of Panaeolus can also be confused with Psathyrella, however the latter genus generally grows on wooden or lignin-enriched soils and has brittle stems.

Pluteus

Pluteus is a large genus of fungi with more than 300 species.
The hat is always flat-convex, but never deepens or funnel-shaped. The stem is in the middle of the hat and can be easily separated from it. At the base it is plump to bulbous, but never bulbous with an edge. The spore powder is deep pink in color and soon gives the initially pale gills a pinkish tinge. The gills are free from the stem. There is neither veil nor ring.

Psilocybe

Psilocybe forms small to medium-sized, yellowish-brown to brown fruiting bodies divided into a cap and stem with a pointed bell-shaped or hemispherical cap, often characteristic. The hats are mostly brown with sometimes blue tints; they are mostly hygrophanous. They are thin and generally sticky to greasy. The name bald head is derived from the smooth surface of the hat. It is rarely also faintly velvety.
The beige lamellae have initially grown widely on the handle, sticking or running down the handle with a tooth. They are usually wide and distant or narrow. They later turn red to dull brown or quickly black. Sometimes they also have purple hues. The cylindrical style is slim and central. The handle, sometimes also the hat, turns black, bluish-black, blue or greenish in color when dried. Sometimes there is a veil. It is found on the hat and stem, sometimes lining the brim of the hat or forming a ring zone on the stem.
The smell is insignificant or farinaceous, sweetish in some species. The taste is also negligible to that of flour, but it is rarely bitter as well. The color of the spores varies from purple-brown to dark purple-brown and rust-colored.

Ecologically, all psilocybe species are saprotrophs that grow in soil, straw, wood chips, peat, and debris. Species that parasitize moss are rare.